


Project Heaven

by Ioni



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Curses, Drama, High School, Original Character(s), Other, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-09-24 18:58:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17106290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ioni/pseuds/Ioni
Summary: After the gruesome death of Kathrine Rollison in 1909, a few High School students are left with a curse that has to be broken.





	1. I

    The chairs were arranged in a circle around the table. As the golden candles thats smelled like vanilla and cinnamon were burning, Kayo was placing the pieces of paper in front of every chair in the room. The wind outside was blowing loudly, making the atmosphere so much more of a cliche than it already looked. She cursed herself for choosing this day, not wanting to make it more dramatic than it was. She let out a long sigh after she finished setting up the place for the others and looked at the clock on her phone - seven more minutes until the others should arrive. She placed her elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand, looking at one of the cadles as the flame was burning lightly, scolding herself for not bringing more matches with her here to lighten the candles in case they got blown out, which might happen at any time. 

    These past few days, the weather played tricks on everyone around the town, cutting the power off all the time, raining like crazy without it stopping; it was horrible, making it harder to move around town if you didn't have a car. And even if you did, the horrible weather made it seem like a bad idea getting out of the house even to go buy something to eat. 

    As she was staring at the golden candle as it was burning, there was suddenly a knock on the door. Then another one and then another one with a pause of three seconds between each knock. Kayo gasped happily before getting up; they remembered about what she told them earlier in the day. She suggested they should have a secret knock so they'd feel like a real secret organisation. A little laugh erupted from everyone, making fun of Kayo's little secret agency that she formed in one of school's classrooms. Then again, she thought to herself, it must be Ray who used the _secret_  knock that she suggested. She hurried to the door with small giggles along the way, and took the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door. Right as the person behind the door was about to open the it, she shut it back closed and placed both her hands on the door to stop it from opening. The other person tried to open it a few times, but gave up eventually. 

    "Didn't i get the knock right?" It was definitely Ray. Kayo let out a small giggle and waited for Ray to quiet down on the other side, then opened the door a few centimeters, just enough for her eyes to be seen through the crack of the door, then with a serious voice, she said that he can come in. Ray clapped his hands and with a huge smile on his face, entered classroom. A few seconds of silence passed, in which neither of them said a word. "Wow, Kayo..." Ray said with a small gasp, "You really went out of your way to make this... Wow..." 

    The shock could be heard in Ray's voice, he really wasn't expecting this to be so dramatic. He never took Kayo as the dramatic type, the only things he saw her do was to eat and play video games on her laptop. Earlier in the day when she told the others, and him, about the meeting that she has planned, she didn't tell them what everything was about.

    "I didn't mean for half of it, but it's cool, right?"  This explains everything. Ray nodded, sitting down on one of the chairs that was arranged around the table, but was quickly rushed by Kayo to get up from that chair. "That's Jae's chair, Ray!" she said as she pulled Ray by his shirt up from the chair and sighed. She moved around the table and searched for his chiar. It was easy to find it since she wrote everyone's names on their paper and placed the papers in front of their chairs, easy. She slapped Ray's chair with a satisfied laugh and gestured to Ray that this is his chair. He moved over to his seat with a very confused expression on his face. She rolled her eyes and before he sat down, she gestured at the two desks placed next to each other and then at the chairs.

    "The window is where the counting starts," she started explaining, placing her hand over the first chair. "it's math, Ray. I counted the chairs as you'd read an old clock, see? The counting starts at this chair," she gestured to the chair that was in front of the window "which is mine, the second is Seth's..." Ray looked at Kayo with an even more confused look on his face. She never was good at explaining things, so right now it wasn't a shock that she didn't make any sense, but he got what she was saying, kind of. The table wasn't placed right next to the window, it was placed in the middle of the room, but she wanted to explain it in a way that Ray would understand what she was trying to say. 

    "Why the candles?" he asked and pointed a pen that he found on the floor to one of the three candles that were burning next to his papers. Before she could say anything, there were three quick knocks on the door. She stopped and looked at the door then looked back at Ray who just shrugged his shoulders. She waited a few more seconds, but when a loud 'Open up!' was heard from the other side of the door, she quickly rused to it to open it. They'll come around to the secret knock, she thought to herself.

    She tried to open the door exactly like she did with Ray - open the door only slightly to give off the mysterious vibe she was going for, but as soon as the door was unlocked, the person on the other side of the door almost hit her right in the face with how hard and fast they opened the door. When she saw the door flying at her face, Kayo flinched and jumped back, trying her best to not get hit by the door in the face. Unfortunately, the door did hit her; noy in the face, but as soon as the door was opened, she felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder, her hand flying immediately to her shoulder to rub it, trying to ease the pain she was feeling. She frowned, her eyebrows contracting as Jae walked in the room with his hands in his pockets. He looked back and saw the state she was in, but all he did was to shrug his shoulders, trying to hold in a laugh. 

    "Kayo, are you okay?" said a girl with a sweet, gentle voice next to her. Kayo blinked the tears she had in her eyes from the pain and looked over to a very concerned Asuka who was reaching her arm out to Kayo's shoulder, but not touching it, almost like she was afraid to not give her more pain than she already felt. "Jae!" shouted Asuka turning herself towards the boy who sat down on one of the chairs with his hands still in his pockets. "You should have been more careful," she said in the same gentle voice as when she asked Kayo if she was okay, turning herself back at the her friend, "you could have broke her nose..." 

    "It's fine, Asuka," said Kayo as she dropped her hand from her shoulder, shrugging just like Jae did the first time when he entered the room. Just as she was about to say something else, the other two members of Kayo's _secret club_  arrived. A big smile spread on Kayo's lips, quickly rushing to Seth to give him a hug, forgeting all about the pain from her shoulder. He dropped his backpack on the ground and held his arms opened for her, as a very awkward Matsuki walked in front of Seth to the others right when Kayo was about to hug her boyfriend. 

    "How come you came here with her," asked Ray pointing out to Matsuki who shot him a confused and at the same time angry expression, "and not with your girl? Seth, do you have something to tell us?" 

    Seth sighed as he picked up his bag from the floor and moved to place it on the table, rolling his eyes at what Ray has said. "We met in front of the school and we walked here together. I'm not cheating on my girlfriend if that's what you're thinking, I'm better than that." Ray let out a chuckle and threw his hands up in the air, mumbling something about being sorry. Matsuki sat at one of the chairs from around the table, avoiding each of their gazes towards her.

    "So," Jae said after some seconds of awkward silence, trying to ease the tension from the room, "why did you call us here, Kayo?" 

    Kayo let out a soft chuckle, her gaze ponited at the floor. She place both her hands at her back and started to move around the table, telling each of them where they should sit. After everyone was sitting in their right seat, she sat down for herself.

    The candles were the only source of light in the room, giving them little to no visibility in the big, empty classroom that Kayo has chosen for this activity. She instructed them to not look at the papers in front each of them. Once everyone has stopped talking and the only thing that could be heard was the rain and wind outside the classroom, Kayo cleared her throat. 

    "There is this rumor," she started, eying each and every one of them one by one, "that every 55 years the restless soul of Kathrine Rollison comes to life to avenge the injustice that was once poured upon her." After she finished her stentence, she looked at each of their reactions. Confusion was all she could see and sense from everyone in the room. She took this as a sign to continue. "Kathrine used to be the kindest person in the small town of Rosevelt. She was a grieving expecting mother. Her husband died in a war, so she was alone and pregnant with her baby girl of only seven months. She was dealing with her husband's death, but her baby kept her going, giving her a reason to stay alive, until-" she stopped her story there, as a loud thunder was heard from outside, earning a quiet shriek from across the table from Matsuki. Once every pair of eyes from the room were on her, she covered her mouth and apologized, looking at Kayo and waiting for her to finish her story. "...Until a couple of highschool students paid her a visit in the middle of the night and murdered her with cold blood."

    The temperature in the room dropped immediately as Kayo said those last words, a complete silence falling over the room. But she wasn't done. "After a few days in which the people from her town haven't heard from Kathrine, they went to her house and found her dead... But this wasn't the worst part... They found her corpse cut open, heart and... Baby missing." She looked around the table again, studying each of their reactions once again, but this time was different. This time, each of them were wearing either a scared, disgusted or angry expression on their faces. "The murderers were never found, but they knew they were High School students because they left a note next to Kathrine in which they wrote the High School's name and a classroom number where they put her heart... Guess what classroom we're in?" 

    After Kayo has finished her stentence, the loud sound of a chair being pulled from the table was heard and everyone looked over to Asuka who had a terrified look on her face, one that any of them have ever seen her have on her face before. "I don't know what kind of sick joke this is, Kayo, but it's not funny!" she yelled at Kayo, tears forming in her eyes. Seth quickly moved his eyes to Asuka when he heard her yell - not because he was curious or startled, but only because she yelled at Kayo, getting ready to step in if it was needed. 

    "No, Asuka..." said Ray looking at her concerned, "My meemaw told me about this when I was a kid... It happened when she was a student here at this High School." Silence fell over the classroom again and Asuka sat down at the table, placing her hands in her lap to cover the fact that she was shaking. "In 1964, when my meemaw was 17, a few kids in her highschool were found dead in a classroom with their hearts missing. Now we don't really know for sure if she comes back every 55 years... But last time she did come back after 55 years after she died. " 

   "But... in a few days we'll be in 2019..." said Matsuki with a blank expression on her face. "It's gonna be 55 years since she came back last time..." 

    Everyone looked at each other in disbelief and confusion. What exactly were they getting into? 


	2. II

    _Seth & Kayo_

    The next few days after the meeting Kayo's secret club has had were full of tension, fear dominating every single one of the teens that were in that room that night. The fear and anxiety they were feeling after that night were screwing with their lifes - affecting their grades, sleep schedule, seeing things in the corner of their eye in the dark even though there wasn't anything there. The frightening thought of a spirit coming back to life any day was enough to keep them up at night with the thought that they might lose their life in a blink of an eye. It was hard to get through life with this sort of thoughts clouding one's rational mind, especially when they had proof that this did happen before. 

  
    The first few days after the meeting were not only affecting their every day life, but also taking pieces of their strong friendship with it. Long story short: some of them believed this and some didn't. The ones that did believe the rumor were scared out of their minds, not knowing what to do to keep the revengeful spirit as away from them as possible and the others that didn't buy any word from the story, calling it "cheap fiction that you use on your kids to scare them off and keep them inside when it's dark", coming with arguments such as: someone could have read a newspaper that talked about Kathrine's death and decided to play a sick prank on some poor High School students or a serial killer who got inspired from a real life murder that he found interesting enough to copy or just a psychopath that thought of himself as being Kathrine's guardian angel that needed to seek justice for a mother that was waiting for her child to be born getting murdered in one of the most gruesome ways possible. Which wasn't all lies; they indeed had no proof that the kids were killed by an actual spirit and the only 'evidence" that it had was that the murderer wasn't found and they were killed the exact same way she was. If it wasn't Kathrine's spirit, then it could have been anyone, and that person might still be alive.

    And like this, the strong bond between the close friends has started to fade away. The fights that they were constantly having made them put distance between one another and as soon as you'd noticed there was a full day in which they didn't talk, then day turned into two, two days turned into a week, a week turned into a month...

    They couldn't call themselfes a group anymore, they stopped having connections from the day they stopped talking. When one of them passed in the hallway by another one from their group, they wouldn't even greet them and in the most delicate cases they wouldn't even look at each other and by the time they came back to school from the winter break, they were complete strangers. It's just as if all their memories that were involving one of their ex-friends were gone, just as if it didn't even happen.

    But of course, there is an exception. Because they were already in a relationship before this fiasco has happened, Kayo and Seth didn't stop talking. On the contrary, it's like the love between those two has grown stronger than before. Maybe it was just a coping mechanism for them, considering the fact that they lost their friends in a  short ammount of time, so maybe that's why they became so close.

    Kayo was a sweet girl with long, red hair. Her big green eyes where the focal point of her face, distracting everyone that looked at her from everything that was going on. The natural waves from her hair sent your mind to an exotic place near the beach and the soft freckles from her face made her eyes stand out even more and the gentle, true smile that found itself place on Kayo's face made you fall in love with her in the blink of an eye. Even though she looked like could send to retirement some of the top models of America, she acted more like the opposite of how she looked: the clothes that she liked to wear were usually two sizes bigger than her actual size - except for the pants, she thought it's too much even for her - weren't too flatering, to say the least. There were full weeks when she either didn't feel like putting on an ounce of makeup, or woke up too late and didn't have any time for it. She wasn't the girly type of person and would much rather have a conversation - better say she'd rant and you'd listen - with you about the newest comic that was realesed this week than act all girly. Other than this, shes a smart girl and has a passion for coding. She's one of the smartest teens in her High School, toping the brightest minds without blinking.

    Some might say that the relationship between Kayo and Seth is - as the teens these days might call it - _goals_ , when really, it has its issues just like every other relationship. She was never the type to act all lovely in a relationship, she says that it makes her feel awkward. If you didn't already know they were a couple, you'd think that they were brother and sister, two siblings spending time with each other because their parents made them do it. They bearly held hands in public, when they met at the lockers in the hallway Kayo would give Seth a quick hug then walk together to the cofeteria to eat their lunch, but Seth didn't mind this. He loved her more than anything in this world, he didn't mind the fact that most of the time she'd act with him like she'd act with her best friend, he didn't mind this... Did he?

    He never seemed to be that kind of boyfriend, but he went along with Kayo's behavior to not upset her, thinking that if he did mention the fact that she's oblivious to how a girl should treat her boyfriend is, she'd shut down and knowing her, she'd get scared and probably end everything with him and he didn't want to lose her just like it happened with everyone else in their little group. He might not act like it, showing them the cold shoulder and not paying attention to most of the things that they were saying and if it wasn't for Kayo, he wouldn't have even gotten to that _meeting_ , but he couldn't refuse his girl. He didn't want to admit this, but there were times where he questioned his love for her and vice versa: thinking about the fact if she realises they're in a relationship where it's acceptable and normal to act a certain way with your significant other, more than how you'd act with a person that it's just your friend. He's not the type to overthink anything - he'd make the good decision in one second, taking the risk only when he's certain that things will go right in his favour - so it did surprise him why he had second feelings about this relationship. He never really had a chance to experience love before, but he did hear other people how'd they wish they had a relationship like they did, so this was love, right?

    Seth's past was a heartbreaking one. He never met his parents and was the care of multiple foster families. He didn't have control over his life until he got in the care of an amazing family two years ago. He got moved around the country, not being able to do anything about it, given his hopeless state in which he was. But now he has a family and a sweet girlfriend, all those thoughts should vanish from his head, why does he still feel like he's hopless? Is this pathetic attempt to happiness next to a girl that isn't even giving him what he wants worth the sadness it brings? Love isn't suppoused to bring you those feelings, was this really what love meant?

    Seth suddenly woke up gasping for air and when he opened his eyes it felt like a heavy rock has been lifted off his chest. His chest relaxed when he finally woke up, feeling as if it cruched up and didn't let him breathe anymore. He blinked the few tears that have formed in his eyes and looked down at his hands, the sight of them  sending a cool shock down his spine. Was he really... shaking?

    He got up from bed and hurried his way to the bathroom, flicking on the lights and in less than a second he was in front of the mirror. He placed his hands on the counter next to the sink, staring at the boy that he's never seen before. He felt weak, and the reflexion that was staring back at him was another version of himself from another univers. It's not the first time when he got those nightmares, but this one was the worst. He usually woke up, looked at the clock and tried to go back to sleep, but now... Now it was different. He never woke up gasping for air, nevet felt his chest so heavy, he never woke up eith tears in his eyes. It felt as if someone was pushing their hands against his chest, not letting him breathe.

    The slight pink from his cheeks was as well something that surprised him; he always had a very pale skin, being always in a beautiful contrast with his black hair which was as well in contrast with his blue eyes. His eyes weren't the typical light blue eyes with slight traces of green in them, they were a deep, rich blue, the kind of blue that you could drown into. He ran a hand through his messy bed hair and sighed, moving his eyes to the sink and as soon as he was about to wash his hands, a faint whisper was heard from outside. He stopped in his tracks, brows clouded up in confusion as he waited for a few seconds. The only thing that he was able to hear was the loud rain from the outside of the bathroom window; big, heavy drops of cold water hitting the window with furious little thuds. He waited a few more seconds just in case and that's when he heard it again; from behind him he heard a soft sob and not even a second after that, he heard a trembling, weak voice whispering in his ears the words 'help me'. Each word was said in each of his ears, feeling as if those damned words went straight through his head.

    He froze in his spot, his eyes widening, his heart racing in his chest like he never felt it beat before. Again, a few seconds of agonizing silence then the light flickered and when it turned on again, there she was: standing behind Seth with her eyes red from crying and her cheeks stained with a grey-ish tint from how the continous strings of tears rolled down her full cheeks. Her long blond hair was dirty, having red stains in random parts of her hair because of her blood, but this wasn't the most terrifying part. When his eyes moved down her body, he saw her stomach  cut open, organs and intenstines dangling helplessly from her open belly. She was wearing a nightgown that had a big cut around her stomach where she got cut open. He turned around at her as quickly as he could, but she was gone. When he turned back around to  face the mirror, he avoided looking into it at all costs and walked out of the bathroom, regreting the choice he made when he got out of bed.

    But the thing that he found strange was the feeling that he got from the encounter with that unfamiliar spirit. When he locked eyes with her in the mirror, she wasn't angry - she was scared. He knew she didn't want to hurt him, in fact, she did ask for his help. 

The walk back to his bedroom was quiet, but that made it so much more frigtening. He was one of the non-believers of this story, but what just happened was real, _it felt so real_ _!_  What is he going to do now? Call his girlfriend and tell her what happened? She's sleeping, she won't pick up. Call the others and tell them what happened? He rushed to get his phone from the bed, checking Instagram to see who was online. Just as expecting, no one was. He put his head back on the pillow and kicked the covers from the bed on the floor. What did she want with him?

* * *

 

    "So you saw her?!" Kayo asked in the most obnoxious way possible. People from around the tables threw them some annoyed looks, but Seth looked back at them with an empty expression on his face. He looked back at Kayo and nodded, then took a bite of his sandwich, not paying too much mind to it. "How are you still alive then?" she asked him with a confused look on her face.  
  
    "I don't know," he responded with a shrug of his shoulders, "might have been just my tired brain pulling stuff on me." He was already over what happened last night, listing it as his imagination screwing with him after the nightmare he had not too long ago.

     Her expression changed from one of confusion, to anger. She never liked it when he acted so indiferent to what fascinated her and didn't appreciate it. He picked up on how she watched him, smiling to himself. He enjoyed her undevided attention, even if it sometimes wasn't the kind of attention she wanted to give him.

    "We have to let the others know!" she said with a smile on her face.

    "And do you think they'll care?" he asked her, not bothering to look up from his sandwich. "We didn't talk in weeks."

    She picked up her phone when she suggested that they should let the others know, but placed it back on the table with a frown. She nodded her head and sighed, she really misses her friends.   
 


	3. III

  _Ray & Asuka_   

    One, two, three then another loud bang on the door. This is what woke Ray up from his sleep, sending him into a confused state. The first thing he noticed was the undeniable pain that was going through is head next to a sharp, constant sound in his ears. He closed his eyes shut, but then the door flew open, hitting the wall from its right with a loud bang, forcing the brown haired boy to open his eyes back in surprise. He looked at the door, dread going through his veins and suddenly, he felt a cold hand around his throat, cutting all the air from his lungs. He looked down at the hand from around his throat, trying to move, to scream, but he couldn't do anything. All he could do is watch as someone behind him is murdering him. Slowly, from the corner of his eye, he saw a hand raising from his left. Its skin was colored a combination between blue and green and the deep purple veins were popping into your eyes - it didn't look to be human or..  Alive. His vision started to get blurry as the cold fingers he saw tightened around his neck, cutting all the air completly from his lungs. By this point, it was such a big effort to keep his eyes open; the pain from his head was replaced by a strong preasure inaide his head, making his eyes feel heavy and he thought that if this kept going any longer, hiw head might explode. While he was trying to stay up, he saw a pair of scissors in its hand. It raised up its hand slowly, in a mocking way. He felt its cold breathe on his neck along with a teriffying giggle. " _You're it,_ " the creature said in a soft voice of a woman, then it flew its hand with the scissors right at his stomach, but right before it hit his skin, Ray woke up gasping for air.

    He quickly placed his hand on his neck, but at the exact same moment he felt an agonizing pain going through his neck. He got out of bed and turned his lights on as quickly as he could then grabbed his phone from the nightstand. His hands were shaking like never before and tears have formed into his eyes. He opened the camera and when he saw it, he almost dropped his phone - he had the most horrible bruise someone could imagine: he had marked on his neck the print of the four fingers that were holding his throat and chocking him in his nightmare. A deep purple bruise that was mocking his sanity, making his mind wonder all over the place.

    There couldn't be a break in, his parents would have heard it, his dog would have barked so loud and woke up the whole house, so the possibility of a criminal coming inside the house and playing a sick prank on him was very unlikely. But that voice... It seemed so familiar. And the scissors...

    Ray turned off the light and got back into his bed, trying to touch his neck again but quickly hissing at the sharp pain he was feeling from it. How is he going to explain it to anyone without sounding insane? How was he suppoused to explain it to his mother in the morning without her accusing him of lying? But was it really what he thought has happened? He might have been drugged by someone and they tried to kill him and it didn't work, but he would have remembered at least some of it. The whole nightmare seemed too familiar, he thought to himself as he ran a hand through his hair that got tangled in the meantime - it was long, almost touching his shoulders. The fact that he couldn't run his hand through his hair like he wanted to frustrated him even more and cursed loudly, punching the pillow next to his head. The only people that would kind of believe him in this whole mess would be his old friends, but he hasn't talked to them in weeks. Would they even respond to him without calling him insane? He was scared of the judgement, he didn't want to be rejected and called names like  _a liar_ or  _insane_ by the only people that might believe and help him in this. But really... Is there any way to help him? If he was targeted by the ghost, there's probably anything anyone can do anymore...

    The thought of that made his blood turn cold and the hairs on his body stand up. The thought of being alone in something so frighting was something that he simply couldn't deal with. He got his phone from where he placed it back on the nightstand and opened his Instagram, checking to see if someone was online. It was 3 am, so he wouldn't be too surprised if no one was online at this hour, but when he saw that Asuka was online, he felt as if God himself blessed him. He opened the conversation with her, seeing that the last thing they talked about was a fight between the two of them. Asuka didn't believe that this Kathrine ghost was real and Ray did. He was scared that something bad might happen to them now that they know about this, but she wasn't having any of it. He pressed the video chat button without a second thought and prayed to God she will answer him, whispering to himself over and over again the word " _please"._

    "Ray?" she asked him in a sleepy voice, the only thing that he could see was the tip of her nose and the white of her eyes. The fain outline of her face bought him a strange feeling of closure, making him sigh in relief. "Are you crying?"

    "Asuka, you won't believe what just happened," he started, his voice cracking a little bit from the terrifying moment he just went through, "Kathrine-"

    "If you're going to start with that bullshit again, Ray, I will hang up!" she hissed at him, making him blink in surprise. He was expecting her to be salty, but not like this.

    "First of, I'm not crying," he continued after a moment of silence, "but listen to me." He paused his talking and bought the brigting on his phone up so she could see him better. He pointed the camera at his neck and showed her the mark on it. She was silent. He didn't know if she was thinking he is a liar or if she simply didn't know what to say. He took this silence as a sign to keep going. "I had a dream where this woman had her hand around my throat chocking me, and she had a pair of scissors in her other hand and right before she stabbed me with it she said _'you're it'_ and when I woke up I had this on my neck!" he whisper-yelled at the phone, being careful with how much noise he made, because he didn't want to wake anybody up. "I thought it was just a nightmare, but when I woke up the first thing I did was to touch my neck and when I did it, it hurt! Then I checked to see what the hell is going on and I have a bruise on my neck from where she was holding me, Asuka!"

    Again, she wasn't saying anything, contemplating on what she could even say in this situation. She thought he might be messing with her, but would he really go as far as getting himself hurt and on the verge of crying just so he could get her attention? It's possible, Ray is a very random person, but very unlike of him to do this. If he wanted to get her attention, he would do something funny, not something as terrifying as this. Ray was an emotional person, but she never saw him cry, so the sight of him being as scared as getting tears in his eyes was a very shocking thing. "We should talk in the morning," she said after a long, silent pause. Ray nodded his head and sighed, running a hand through his hair again and being more patient when his fingers got stuck in it. "Come pick me up in the morning and we can go to school together and... Talk about this. "

    He agreed, and when he closed the call, she placed her phone on the nightstand that was sitting next to her bed. She didn't know what to think right now. She really didn't believe that Kathrine even existed, let alone that her ghost will come to life this year. And if what Ray told her was true, they all were in complete danger. But this just made her wonder, was Ray being a target a coincidence or was the whole group a target because they now know about this? If that's true, then the next one could actually die. She pulled the covers over herself and closed her eyes. She could at least get a little bit of sleep, she had a bad feeling about tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

 

    When her alarm rang, she was already awake, looking up at the ceiling with her eyes fixed on one spot so much that the walls and the ceiling were a blur, as if those two diffrerent things were one. The loud alarm in her very quiet room startled her, making her jump and curse, her heart beating fast in her chest. She turned it off as soon as she could catch her breath and got out of bed. She walked to her closet and chose what clothes to wear for today and randomly chose a white pair of jeans and a black oversized hoodie.

    Once she was fully dressed and after she washed her teeth, she walked downstair yawning and saw her mother at the kitchen table, making breakfast for her little brother. She waved her hand to her mother when she greeted her. "What are you doing up so early, Asuka?" her mother asked in an amused way, "I usually have to drag you out of bed." she added with a little laugh at the end, thing that made Asuka roll her eyes. She sat down at the table and threw her bag on the ground and took a bite out of her little brother's toast, but he quickly took it back from her. Her mother offered to make her some toast as well, but she said she isn't hungry anyway so there's no need for that. Once her phone beeped, she got up from the table where she sat down to wait for Ray to get there and grabbed her bag, telling her mom she's leaving for school now.

    Before opening the door to leave, she pulled out her phone and checked herself out: her black hair that touched her shoulders was okay, her lashes were okay, her pale pink lipstick was okay. Before she closed her phone she smiled and took a picture of herself, then finally opened the door to step out.

    Ray was waiting in front of the door and when she got out, she pumped into him. He was facing the road with his back at the house, so when he felt something poke his back he turned around. When she finally saw him, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. It was heartbreaking to see a very cheerful and happy person like Ray look so tired and scared. His eyes looked so tired, as if he didn't get any minute of sleep - thing that wouldn't surprise her after what he told her has happened. He was wearing a very high turtle neck sweater that completly covored up his neck, but she didn't dare ask him to show her his neck, she was scared to see that the ghost is actually... Real.

    They started walking towards the school in complete silence, the only thing that could be heard between the two of them was the busy road after they walked a few blocks from her house. He had his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground and yawning from now and then. He seemed a little relaxed and at peace now that he was in the presence of someone else rather than Kathrine next to him, giving him some closure - he wasn't as alone and as hopeless as he thought he was last night. She wanted to bring up the subject about what happened last night, but she didn't dare do it. She was scared to not say the wrong thing or upset him in any way.

    "Do you believe me?" he asked Asuka in a weak voice; and that voice wasn't so weak because he was scared or hurt, she could feel how tired he was from his voice. "Don't you think I'm lying?"

    She shook her head and kept her gaze on the ground, not daring to look at him and meet his eyes. "I never called you a liar, Ray," she assured him, finally looking up at him and giving him a little smile. That gesture alone was able to brighten up Ray's face, thing that warmed her heart; he was always so childlish and emotive. "I'm sorry for what happened to you," she added, seeing him soften up, "maybe we should tell Seth and Kayo about what happened? I'm sure they're gonna listen too."

"Yeah..." he said, fixing his eyes in front of him. "If not them then who would?"


End file.
